An early black songwriter, born in New Orleans, Clarence Williams (1898), claimed to have been the first to use the word "jazz" in a sheet of music. He wrote Royal Garden Blues (1919) for the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (recorded in may 1921), before moving to Chicago (1920) and to New York (1923) where he helped bootstrap Bessie Smith's career with Gulf Coast Blues (february 1923) and several more hits.
Williams, also a pianist himself, was instrumental in organizing the Blue Five series of recording sessions with rising stars of jazz and blues music such as Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet.
He recorded several of his compositions in intriguing arrangements:
Bozo (november 1928), for a big band featuring both cornetists King Oliver and Ed Allen,
Red River Blues (march 1928), for a quintet with piano, clarinet, cornet, tuba and washboard,
Organ Grinder Blues (july 1928), etc.